"Oh, I want to go back and see the Munsters again, that place was so cool and so much fun." Dawn said excitedly as her mother fussed over her eye. "And they're just like us, they know about Magic and love Halloween and dressing up for it."
"They know about Magic?" Xander asked. "I guess that explains why they didn't look more surprised when they saw the portal open up."
"And it might explain why there's another opening up again." Buffy pointed and the others turned to look. Sure enough, the area where Dawn had stepped through was opening and Grandpa Munster was on the other side.
"It worked!" Herman's voice could be heard cheering.
"Of course it worked, I know what I'm doing, Herman!" Grandpa grumbled. "Miss Dawn, there are you, so nice to see you again. Herman won't shut up about how much fun meeting you was and I finally figured out how to reverse your portal. That's some high level Magic, I've never encountered it before. I quite enjoyed the challenge."
"Mr. Munster, I had fun meeting you guys too!" Dawn assured the giant man all but jumping up and down with excitement. "Your house is neat and your family reminded me of my own."
"Does anyone else find it a little creepy," Buffy asked softly. "that a grown man is acting like a child and wanting to be Dawn's friend?"
Joyce frowned at Buffy. "He could just be a lonely man who finds it difficult to make friends because his interests are so different from most people's, Buffy. He hasn't done anything to hurt anyone, that we know of and if he and Dawn want to talk to each other, as long as one of us is nearby when they do, I think it's okay for now."
"That's what Lily said too." Herman told them, proving he'd heard them talking. "That Dawn and I can be friends and talk to each other and it's okay since you seem like nice people. But I'm not allowed to open the portal myself, only Grandpa can."
"It's my equipment, Herman and I'm the one who does Magic, not you!" Grandpa reminded him. "And someone needs to make sure no one's taking advantage of you, sometimes I think we didn't give you enough brains when we made you."
"And sometimes I think Dawn got too many brains." Buffy muttered.
"Recreating your portal was challenging because I think there's a time displacement." Grandpa informed them.
"And a reality one." Xander answered. "Dawn's portals tend to do one or the other or sometimes both, fortunately I can track her, so she doesn't end up permanently lost."
"I had to put a tracker on Herman too because he's been known to wonder off." Grandpa admitted. "It's nice to have someone else to talk to about Magic, no one else in the family practices it, although Lily does know a few things. Also fortunately I'm familiar with temporal Magic, for my last birthday my daughter, Lily, pulled several people from my past, including her mother, my last wife, forward to help celebrate the day."
"That was nice of her." Joyce commented. "Unless it was too painful to see lost ones."
"Oh no, I visit the ghosts of all my former wives frequently and am still on good terms with all of them." A comment that had everyone blinking for a moment. "But it was nice to see Lily's mother in the flesh again, so to speak."
"Does Marilyn do Magic?" Dawn asking, thinking Marilyn just needed a little help to break out of that teenagery angst thing and maybe learning Magic could help her.
"You know," Grandpa said, looking surprised. "it never occured to me to ask her. Maybe she feels a little left out, she's Herman's niece and he and Lily adopted her when she was a baby after her parents died. I moved in after Eddie was born. I may have made her feel left out by focusing on Eddie, I didn't mean to."
"Some times you can be too close to a problem to see it." Joyce offered. "And an outside perspective can help. From what Dawn was just telling us Marilyn sounds like a teenager and they are given to extremes of behavior and emotion."
"That would explain her choice of dates. And why they keep running away on her." Grandpa muttered. "I think I'll do that, see if she'd be interested in learning Magic. Poor girl, she already feels separate because of her condition and here I am focusing on Eddie because he's my grandson. But that's no excuse for ignoring Marilyn, she's grown up in this family too. Thank you for helping me see that."
"Not a problem." Joyce assured him. "I have daughters myself but their friends are very much part of our family too."
"So it's okay if Dawn and I call and talk to each other?" Herman asked anxiously. "Not many people appreciate Frankenstein's and having someone to talk to sounds nice."
"I don't mind." Joyce replied. "Just as long as one of us is around, Dawn's tendency to get lost through her portals means we need to work to keep track of her."
"And you can only call her when I operate the equipment." Grandpa insisted. "You messed up my spell ingredients the last time you were in my lab. I turned into a bat because you mixed up the labels. Not that it wasn't fun." Grandpa admitted.
"I haven't tried shapeshifting Magic yet " Xander told him. "But my friend Amy can turn herself and others into rats."
Joyce listened and marveled at how normal this had all become since learning about Magic and the supernatural.